In petroleum refineries, it is a common practice to burn the exhaust gases of a stage of the refinery before releasing them to the atmosphere in order to reduce the environment pollution. The color of the flare at any given time is the result of the constituents of the gases that are present in the flare. The volume of the flare indicates the quantity of gas that is getting released in the refining process. Hence, in an indirect way, the parameters such as color, volume etc. of the flare indicate the performance of the particular stage in the refining process.
In many oil refineries, the flare is manually observed by the operator for any abnormality. Manual observation of the flare on a 24×7 basis is a difficult job, and is not a reliable way to detect abnormalities. Some prior methods of analyzing the flare include the use sensors working in the infrared spectrum to gather information about the flare, and using intensity and color measurements to estimate flare temperature.